


Too Early For This

by Dr_Megamind



Series: Godsdamnit Loki! [1]
Category: Runemarks Series - Joanne Harris
Genre: But try anyway, But you will fail, Destruction, Gen, Homes and lives, I like the blood of innocents, It's actually a trident, Jorgi may be ticklish, Pitchforks and Torches abound, Someone should try and stop me, loki ruins everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 01:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14706605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Megamind/pseuds/Dr_Megamind
Summary: It's too early for this, but Maddy seems to be the only one who gets that





	Too Early For This

Maddy woke up to the sound of enraged screams and the smell of fire. 

Jumping off the bed in alarm, her sleep-addled brain recognized the commotion as a sign of _another_ world-ending event, as one is bound to do after experiencing world-ending events with relative frequency. And, reversed glam or no reversed glam, Maddy was still the daughter of Thor and waking her up in this manner and this early in the morning – _why, the bright light through her window wasn’t the sun, but the flames consuming Asgard, what are the odds-_ was generally met with a very specific type of automated response common in survivors of at least two apocalyptic battles and on stand-by for a third.

All screaming ceased as a powerful casting of _Thuris_ completely ruined the front entrance of the smithy-of-Malbry-but-better-and-in-Asgard and the assembled gods in various states of fury, panic and, in some cases, disdain, witnessed the heir to Asgard walk out of the destroyed house barefooted, her hair looking like Hughie was about to show his smug raven face through the nest he had created on Maddy’s head, with her nightgown, consisting of a really large old shirt, caught in her underwear on one side.

“My anteroom! My beautiful anteroom!” screeched Sif, only to be pointedly ignored by the transfixed pantheon watching Modi wipe drool off her chin with one hand and resume watching them suspiciously with _Thuris_ shining in the other.

Silence was prevalent for a good half minute before someone finally broke it.

“Ah, Maddy! Such a sight for sore eyes you are!” the too-cheery voice of the Trickster, currently held off the ground by Thor’s gigantic fist on his neck and prompted to silence by three different sword pointing at his kidneys, spine and butt, broke the spell. “Would you mind-“

“ _SHUT UP!”_

The Thunder God, in his underwear, tightened his grip on the redhead’s neck cutting off his voice and proper oxygen flow, threatening to snap it. “ _AND LOOK AWAY YOU INBRED PIECE OF CHARCOAL!”_

“Technically, Thor, there is no such thing possible-“Frey began, only to wisely close his mouth at the death glare sent his way.

“ _ALL OF YOU! LOOK AWAY!”_

As all male gods present hastened to obey the panicking Thor in dad-with-a-teenage-daughter mode, except Loki, who was asphyxiating and flailing madly trying to grab her attention, Maddy took in the entire picture before her. All the halls in her line of sight were in various states of being burned down, the gods and goddesses a strange parade of pajamas and underwear -and whatever Freyja was sporting- her mind finally cleared and, through careful consideration, she came to a decision.

_It’s too early for this._

“Where is Odin?” she asked, trying to sound patient and failing, the rune still on her hand now itching madly to destroy all her grievances in a glorious show of thunder and pain.

“He’s on one of his trips, by Hel Maddy, your gown…”

“Frigg?”

“She’s with him. And don’t think you are not cleaning up my anteroom young lady, not for a second, not when you sleep under _my_ roof and eat _my_ food and drink _my_ mead!”

“ _Help…”_

“Then who’s in charge?” she demanded. She noticed Loki raising his hand a little, only for it to be immediately slapped away by Skadi. And then, to her growing frustration, those who were allowed to look at her general direction, stared at her expectantly. _One-Eye is paying for this._ Oh, she could imagine the crafty old fox, relaxing in some inn or another with Ethel, smoking his pipe and laughing at her expense. She would show him when he came back, she really would.

Loki had now turned a bit purple.

“Where is Siggyn?”

This time, it was Iddun who responded. “She took Vali and Narvi and went to visit her mother until Loki realized he was hurting his family with his behaviour.”

Maddy had to admire the scarred Trickster, for only he would be capable of trying to assume an innocent and hurt look while he was being murdered. _Speaking of which…._

“Dad. Let him go.”

“He has it coming! I will teach him a lesson he will not soon forget!”

“Dad.”

The commotion immediately began anew and Maddy made out some fairly impressive curses and creative threats, especially considering the hour, but she did not back down. Grumbling, Thor opened his fist clenched around Loki’s throat, who then fell flat on his face on the ground, grasping his throat and greedily taking breaths.

“Th-thanks…. That… That was… close…” he choked out, attempting to get on his knees.

“ _AVERT YOUR VILE EYES OR I WILL RIP THEM OFF AND FEED THEM TO YOU YOU SLIMY LITTLE-“_

“Relax, nothing I haven’t seen before-“

And as Thor’s fist connected with the Trickster’s face, Maddy caught herself feeling impressed at how someone so smart could be so ridiculously, hilariously careless so much as to exist in a constant state of peril just by getting off his bed in the morning. But this was dragging out and she wanted to get back to sleep.

“Alright. Who did this?”

All hands, swords and rune-gloves in attendance pointed directly at the prone redhead without a second’s hesitation. She stared at him with a raised eyebrow and waited for the inevitable excuse, only to realize that his head being stepped on by her father prevented him from noticing. Sighing internally, she prepared to ask, only to be interrupted by the Trickster’s muffled attempts at speaking.

“Dad.” she warned, the strained tone of voice forcing the thunder god to reluctantly remove his foot with a warning “careful now” to the abused man at his feet. He, for his part, swiftly turned his back on her, talking instead on a nearby bush.

“It’s not my fault.”

“Sure it’s not. What is it that you didn’t do?”

And she did indeed regret asking that when fifteen minutes later she had been forced to sit through a long explanation of what Loki had no part in, which mysteriously involved Fenris and his wolf buddies, three peppers, a small shiny bauble and what had been described as “strange green snot-slime-thing” coming off of a small snake that may or may not have been the result of Angie trying to have a family day with the kids.

It was at times like this that Maddy had to waste a lot of mental effort into reminding herself why she had actually almost died to prevent the world from being devoured by a giant bird on fire.

“So what you are saying is,” she said carefully after Loki was done, “that this,” she motioned at the general destruction behind them, “is because you-“

“Jorgi.”

“Because _Jorgi_ is ticklish.”

“Yes.”

The silence went on.

“May I just add,” Bragi spoke up, staring wistfully at a nearby peach tree, avoiding Maddy’s shirt –only clad form, “that _Jorgi_ isn’t typically allowed to be going in and out of Asgard. In his snake form. His _ticklish_ snake form that once devoured the Thunderer.”

“I wasn’t _devoured_ -“

“He _did_ swallow you up and spit you back out dear.” Sif pointed out, sending a murderous glare toward Loki when he grinned at her words.

Maddy rolled her eyes and briefly wondered of this sort of thing wasn’t happening too often for her liking five months into her new residence/ re-instated god world. Sometimes she really missed Malbry back when the worst part of her day would be avoiding Nat Parson’s godlessness and its consequences lectures, although of course everyone knew how _that_ one had turned out in the end. Still. The good old days were the good old days and frankly, she never had to worry about getting a good night’s sleep before she took up residence with the godfolk.

Besides, refereeing was supposed to be Perth’s thing.

Which when she really thought about it, wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

She pinched the bridge of her nose as she let out a weary sigh. “Where is Angie and the rest of the family now?” she asked Loki, who was currently under the, uh, strict supervision of Thor, who looking at him with a certain air of expectation, just _waiting_ for the Trickster god to look up from the ground at his daughter.

“She left the moment things went… astray,” he replied dryly. “A very concerned mother, our Angie. She said children shouldn’t be exposed to such violence, especially from their father, before taking off on Fenny and company. _Just_ as this lot came out of their houses, pitchforks and torches lit and ready. Crazy, right?”

And then, to the Thunderer, “Really Thor, don’t stare like that, you will make me blush.”

Several things happened at the same time.

Maddy was left positively aghast at the seer lack of survival instinct.

Thor howled and made a grab for Loki, who switched to his wildfire aspect and, like any self-respecting suicidal god-like entity would, made a bee line for the still slack jawed Maddy, who in turn got doused with Logr, making the entire flimsy shirt situation entirely too uncomfortable all of a sudden, also making her extremely aware that Loki was now cowering right behind her behind.

“For the last time you wretch,” Njord protested angrily, “it’s a _trident.”_   

Thor’s eyes bulged out. “I am going to fucking _demolish_ you.”

A threat delivered in an entirely too calm voice.

Maddy, for a few moments was tempted to let them kill him off, because he deserved it, really. Besides, Loki had proven that he could escape death before all this went down and she was certain that he would eventually forgive her, or at least not plan horrible world-ending revenge because he would be understanding enough of the fact that she was _sleepy_ and it was _the middle of the night_ and really, who could blame her for just wanting everything to be over with and going to bed?

_It’s for his own good really. He needs the time-out._

But one look at the gathering of gods turned backs (with Frey conspicuously trying to put out his torch), the goddesses’ outraged and/or murderous eyes, or the way Loki was insistently staring at the ground with such humility it would have fooled anyone who didn’t know him for more than ten minutes, Maddy’s brain came full circle back to her original thought.

_IT’S TOO EARLY FOR THIS!_

But there is never any rest for the wicked and Maddy might not be particularly wicked, but most everyone in her life was a right arsehole, aside maybe from Iddun, who was an angel and this terrible environment had clearly rubbed off in some way.

She wondered if Mimir, from somewhere, somehow, was able to see what his archnemesis’s (or secondary archnemesis in any case) was struggling with and whether or not he was laughing his head off.

_Ha!_

Taking about three seconds to think this through like the responsible adult she clearly was, she delivered her final judgement with her best serious voice, exercising all of her self-restraint.

“Dad. Don’t.” she warned her father, who was just now getting over the fact that a known lustful deviant was standing behind his daughter’s barely covered form and about to do quite a lot about it. The burly man gave her a dubious look but grudgingly complied, with Maddy trying to convince herself it was her no-nonsense look, but really, her father was probably just waiting for a moment when she would not be standing in front of the aforementioned deviant. “I think we should all calm down a bit-“ she continued, ignoring the eruption of protests and veiled insults in front of her and the “you’re right” from behind her. “- and be reasonable about this. All of _you_ -“she waved at the gods standing about, waiting for a nice midnight murder spree or something “-go to bed. Nothing to see here. As for _you_ -“ she turned to the redhead trickster, very diligently staring at the opposite direction of her butt, his back, she noted with annoyance, only _partially_ turned away. “- _you_ are making reparations. Everything you broke, you fix.”

Loki turned to her with a hurt look, before, in a matter of seconds, realizing that Maddy was _still_ in a flimsy shirt, only now said shirt was practically soaked because of him and immediately shifted his head away. “But I didn’t _do_ anything!” he whined miserably, resigned.

“You can take it up with _them_ , if you don’t like my decision.” She gestured towards the gods and goddesses still gathered, realized Loki wasn’t looking at her and added lamely “The Vanir and the Aesir, I mean.”

“I know what you mean.” he replied irritably.

“Good. Yes. Excellent. Now, all of you, off to bed. Move on ladies and gents, nothing to see here.” She shouted, making shooing noises and ignoring the all-around disappointment hanging heavily in the air. She wondered how so many people could be so focused on murder with such diligence so as for prevention (or in some cases, enabling) of said act being on daily repeat.

And, it seemed, it was soon going to occupy her, or the resident Responsible Adult in charge, also on a nightly basis.

_Just great. Awesome. This is exactly what I needed. One-Eye will_ pay _for this._

She turned to return to her house, now semi-destroyed (Sif was touchy about her anteroom and she almost kicked herself for not adding it in things for Loki to repair- no, it would not be unfair, it would be a… creative extension of his punishment, seeing as it was _his_ fault that she made it explode in the first place) and resolutely focused on thoughts of her nice, warm bed, with her nice, warm coverlet and a change of clothes would be more than welcome, all things considered.

Her pleasant thoughts were not to last too long however.

“Hey, Maddy!”

The hair at the back of her neck stood on edge at the tone of the caller’s voice. She slowly turned her head to look at him and could see the savage glint in his eyes, thinly veiled behind his pleasant expression and, no doubt, purposely on display.

_Oh, for Odin’s shake, don’t you_ dare-

“Nice panties.” he spat before once more changing into his wildfire aspect and, through some very unlikely physics and, Maddi suspected, the real cause of his newfound humbleness while behind her, he burrowed in the ground and disappeared. In the few seconds between everyone’s slack-jawed, frozen surprise and Skadi’s first savage swing of her runewhip, he was already out of reach.

Soon after, in a brilliant flurry of murderous runecasting and oaths of vengeance, as well as some creative landscape renovation (aka a lot of crates and utter destruction where the house used to be), the gods finally gave up and returned to bed for the night, leaving Maddy staring in resigned blankness from the branch she had taken refuge to.

It was a brilliantly calculated move, she would realize later, when she and the rest of the gods would be in organized little groups, cleaning up the charred remains of Sif’s smithy-but-better, one encompassing both Loki’s wildly self-destructive nature and also his overwhelming desire to avenge himself on everyone and everything, And she really hoped that he regretted being such a jerk wherever he had run off to, because the next time (and with Loki, there would _definitely_ be a next time) she would not stop Thor from crushing his windpipe with Jolly. In fact, she thought angrily as she threw a piece of debris behind her back and managed to hit Frey right on the head, she would be having _words_ with Loki. A lot of painful, screaming words that would make him think really long and hard next time.

_Unlikely,_ a voice in her head whispered, a voice suspiciously more manly and cheery than she was and which was promptly crushed by her imaginary war-like screams of vengeance soon after it emerged.

Vengeance would be forthcoming and by the gods, she would have the weasel pay.

 

 


End file.
